A Bordeaux Dynasty: A Novel (59 page)

Louis-Marie looked stunned.

Jules smiled at him and said, “You know, we have so much of it. Instead of expanding the cellar, I’m going to make some room down there.”

Louis-Marie had no intention of arguing with Jules, but the idea of a sale upset him. He cared much more about Fonteyne than he’d ever realized until recently. Little by little, his interest in the estate was growing. The incredibly complex and well-oiled machine that was Fonteyne no longer left him indifferent. Over the course of the past weeks he’d spent working there, he’d revived some of the values he’d forgotten about in Paris. Fighting for their land, their name, their estate was infinitely more important than seeing his name at the top of an article or on a book cover in some bookstore.

I’ll wind up staying here for good if this keeps up,
he thought, though the notion scared him a little.

It was very hot outside, and Laurène tried to shoo away the wasp buzzing near her ears.

“Will you have lunch with us, Mr. Varin?” Jules suddenly asked.

Laurène blushed. She should’ve been the one coming up with that question. She turned to her husband, but he was already on his feet.

“I’m going to let Fernande know,” he said.

They all watched as Jules walked into the house, and then Louis-Marie leaned toward Varin.

“You know that Robert and I are determined to do anything we can to be useful. With all that’s on his plate, Jules needs our support. And so don’t hesitate to call on us if need be.”

Varin gave him a serious nod. The judge’s summons marked the beginning of the trial, the start of the avalanche of problems that could come crashing down on Fonteyne. Subtly, the notary glanced at the castle’s façade. There shouldn’t be anything to fear. All of Aurélien’s demands had been carefully met and everything had been done properly. And yet, on more than one occasion, Varin had seen tribunals hand down judgments that made little sense. He’d read Fonteyne’s statutes so many times he knew them by heart. They seemed to him unchallengeable, but still he prayed that Valérie Samson wouldn’t somehow find even the smallest of flaws.

Alexandre woke up with an awful taste in his mouth and his temples pounding. The night before, he’d had even more to drink than usual. When Marc barged into their regular bar, he was in a state of overexcitement. He said he’d just heard from a buddy working at a Bordeaux hospital that his sister had given birth a few weeks earlier. Right away he’d wanted to see Frédérique, but she’d left her apartment building without telling anyone what her new address was.

Marc had come to the obvious conclusion. But he had no proof and could do nothing except tell Alex about it. He ordered a drink and said that until then they’d been buddies, but now they were part of the same family. They drank some more and came up with all kinds of speculations, most of them far-fetched. Marc said he thought his sister was a bitch and that she’d no doubt been sleeping around. What he didn’t understand, though, was why she hadn’t tried to get some sort of compensation.

Alexandre, trying to hide his distress, kept raising his glass to Marc. He came back to Mazion at dawn in a horrific state. He remembered promising Marc that he’d always be his friend, but recalled nothing after that, not even driving home.

He ever so slowly turned his head toward the alarm clock. It was almost noon, and he could hear cheerful voices coming from downstairs. Dragging himself to the bathroom, he dropped the clothes he’d worn yesterday in the hamper and took a long, warm shower, trying to make his headache go away.

Down in the kitchen, he found Dominique and Laurène chatting away. His wife only gave him a glance as she handed him a cup of black coffee. The two sisters had clammed up as soon as he walked into the room, which put him in a foul mood.

“What are you looking at?” he barked at Laurène.

She thought he’d changed even more and hadn’t been able to hide her surprise.

“Please, Alex!” Dominique said, her voice hard.

Furious, he turned to her. He knew she was upset with him because of the hour he got home, and the way he looked. He could only imagine her disgust when he fell in bed fully clothed. His own humiliation made him cruel.

“What’s with the long faces?” he asked. “Somebody die?”

His hand was shaking, and he quickly put his mug down. Laurène’s presence compelled Dominique to remain calm.

“Why don’t you go outside to get some fresh air?” she suggested to her husband.

“In this heat? Are you nuts?”

He opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of white wine. His urge for a drink was uncontrollable, in spite of the two women’s presence. He was going to take a glass out of the cupboard, but Dominique stood in his way.

“You could at least sober up before starting again!” she screamed.

He gave her a hard shove, and she had to grab the table to keep from falling down.

Laurène jumped to her feet.

“Don’t touch my sister!”

As tiny and frail as she was, she stood in front of him, her stomach sticking out a bit.

He burst out laughing and said, “Hey, squirt, shut the hell up!”

He took a long drink from the bottle, then glared at his sister-in-law.

“You should’ve been faster about getting knocked up,” he said. “I know someone who beat you to it. …”

Dominique and Laurène shared a bewildered look. They didn’t know what Alexandre was talking about.

“Just ask your dear husband,” he continued. “He knows firsthand all about being a bastard. …”

Then he started to laugh, pleased with himself. Dominique snatched the bottle of wine out of his hands and threw it in the sink, where it shattered. Then she grabbed Laurène’s hand and dragged her out of the house. Running into the yard, they collided with Marie.

“What’s all the racket, girls?”

Their mother was looking at them, stunned. They looked haggard. Alex appeared at the door, right behind them.

At the sight of Marie he didn’t step out of the house, but he shouted, “Just ask him, Laurène! You’ll see that I’m right.”

“What is he talking about?” Marie asked.

“I don’t know. He’s being crazy.”

Dominique, powerless, shot Alex a murderous look. She had the feeling he was telling the truth, alcohol or no.

“Just ask Jules,” Alex continued. “The name Frédérique … Does that ring a bell?”

Marie walked right up to her son-in-law.

“Get back inside the house,” she said between her teeth.

When she wanted, Marie could be imposing, and Alex immediately turned around. Marie heard the sound of an engine and turned to see Laurène’s car speeding away. She marched inside the house, intent on learning exactly what had happened.

Laurène was silently crying, curled up in a ball on the sofa as Jules paced in front of the fireplace, hands buried in his pockets. Nothing he’d said or done managed to console her. He’d candidly answered all her questions, telling her the truth since she already knew too much. He was as sad as she was, maybe more. But Frédérique’s child existed, and no one could do anything to change that.

He came over to the sofa and knelt down, hoping Laurène would look at him.

“Please, I beg you … Don’t cry …”

She moved a little but kept her face buried in her arms. She’d never forgotten the stormy moments they’d endured the year before, or her fear of Frédérique. She remembered the way Jules had looked at her rival back then. He’d cheated on her, causing her unbearable pain. She’d thought that pain had passed for good, but there it was again. Jules could very well be that baby’s father, and therefore she wouldn’t be the first woman to give him a child. The very idea was agony to her. She’d figured that since being married and, even more so, pregnant, she’d be sheltered. But now her world was crumbling, along with her illusions. She knew all about Jules’s insane love for his father, and to think that Aurélien might be that child’s father was even more horrific. No matter how she looked at the situation, she found no solace.

“You’re going to love him,” she began to say. “You’re going to love him … You already love him.”

Feeling powerless at the sight of his wife’s distress, Jules got back up. He contemplated her for a long moment, not knowing what to do next. When he finally took a step toward the door, she got up and began screaming.

“Don’t go! Not tonight! You run away from me every single night! Why? Because I’m just some insignificant thing to you? You perform your marital duties and then you disappear. I’m sick of it!”

“Laurène …”

“It’s true! I’m always alone and I’m scared! Your dog spends more time in bed with me than you do!”

Hair tousled, her makeup running down her face from the tears, she appeared on the verge of hysteria.

“And then I’ll be disfigured from that baby I wanted to give you, and while I recover, you’ll only be thinking of that other woman!”

She tripped on the edge of the carpet and fell to her knees. Instead of getting up, she crawled over to Jules on her hands and knees.

Remaining still, Jules was horrified by what he was seeing.

“I’m your wife!” she screamed.

He bent down, took Laurène in his arms, and easily lifted her off the floor. She was struggling to free herself, screaming like a madwoman and sobbing.

Louis-Marie, in his bathrobe, walked into the room and approached the bed on which Jules had just placed Laurène. She was still screaming, and the brothers looked at each other. Jules was pale as a ghost.

“Call Auber,” he said, holding his wife down on the bed.

He felt cold, detached. He thought that if something bad happened to Laurène or the child she was carrying, he was going to kill Alex with his own hands.

August was sweltering, and no rain came down. Jules kept a constant watch on the grapes. Botty, his tongue sticking out, followed him around everywhere, staying away from the bedroom. Dr. Auber had recommended calm and quiet, and Laurène used this as an excuse to come out of her room only at mealtimes. Jules never talked about his Fonteyne-related worries at the table, trying instead to make Laurène laugh. She gave him sad looks, forced herself to smile at his joking, asked Louis-Marie a few questions concerning the castle’s grounds but never with any conviction.

In spite of all the work she had to do, Fernande made a habit of spending extra time with Laurène when taking her breakfast tray upstairs. Every morning she found her looking sad and lifeless. She’d noticed that Jules often slept down in Aurélien’s bedroom but refrained from asking questions and simply made the bed, emptied the ashtray, and shut the window.

Laurène spent her afternoons sleeping, shutters closed to keep out the sun, in a ball in her bed, waiting and waiting for Jules to come see her. He hadn’t touched her since her nervous breakdown, and she figured he was mad at her for letting her anger explode the way it had. But each time she thought of Frédérique, that same fury erupted inside her.

She felt frustrated and abandoned, and suffered physically knowing that he was downstairs at night, convinced that he was retaliating for the things she’d told him that day. She missed Jules’s caresses, his scent, his reassuring presence. When she heard his footsteps on the gravel, she hid behind the shutters to watch him come and go with that energetic stride of his. And when she made out Bingo’s silhouette at the top of the hill, she waited for the sound of the horseshoes announcing Jules’s return. She wanted to call out to him but didn’t dare. She’d forced him to marry her by not taking the pill. Maybe he was mad at her for that? Maybe he saw her as an obstacle standing between him and that other child? Each time the phone rang, she worried. Maybe it was Robert or Pauline giving Jules news of Frédérique and her baby? Jules said that the two of them lived in Paris. His brothers had therefore taken part in lying to her, to keep everything secret.

She was consumed with bitterness and dwelled endlessly on her fears. She no longer went to Mazion but often called Dominique, who remained her only contact with the outside world.

“How are you feeling this morning?” Fernande asked as she walked into the bedroom.

She opened the drapes, put the breakfast tray down on Laurène’s knees, and scrutinized her.

“You still look a little pale,” she said. “You really ought to go outside a bit. It’s not so hot toward the end of the day.”

She poured some tea, adding a cube of sugar.

“The flowerbeds are gorgeous, you’ll see. Bernard waters them every morning at dawn.”

Laurène gave the old woman a smile. She trusted her.

“Is Jules out in the fields?” she asked in a small voice.

She always wanted to know what he was doing, where he was. Fernande felt so sad for Laurène.

“No,” she said. “He’s in Bordeaux. But he’ll be back by lunchtime. He gave me this for you.”

She pointed at a white rose on the tray. Laurène wondered if Jules had really taken the time to pick the flower for her. But Fernande never lied.

“That’s nice,” she said, caressing the rose.

“What would be nicer,” Fernande said, “would be for you not to spend all your time in bed. You have to walk. The doctor said so.”

“I’m not sick,” Laurène said.

“All the more reason to walk around a bit.”

Fernande lovingly tapped Laurène’s hand.

“And you’re going to have to talk to Jules, you know. …”

Laurène grimaced, and Fernande shook her head.

“Okay, then,” she said. “I have to go downstairs to start preparing lunch.”

Laurène suddenly straightened in her bed, almost toppling the tray.

“I’m sorry I’m not helping you in the house, Fernande,” she said.

Fernande narrowed her eyes and jumped at the occasion to speak her mind.

“I must tell you that I do miss you being downstairs with me. … You know, running errands and all that. … I manage with the help of Lucas and Clothilde, and sometimes Mr. Louis-Marie. And we do have some things delivered here, as you know. Still, it’s not easy. …”

She’d picked up the tray and was heading for the door.

“Make a list,” Laurène said. “I’ll go to Bordeaux this afternoon.”

Fernande nodded, pleased with herself.